This is a question that should be asked of any person who is running for a
national office. We don't mean how many poor people one sees on the streets as
one drives by in an automobile, nor just those who show up at the soup kitchen
with whom a photo opportunity is in progress. We mean the people who live
constantly at, or only slightly above, the poverty line, constantly worrying as they
juggle their meager budgets to try to prioritize and keep their heads above the
fiscal disaster that lurks everywhere. We mean those who work even when they're ailing because
they cannot feed their families without that paycheck and "doctors cost money."

Pediatricians are becoming alarmed because more women are foregoing prenatal
medical care and even having their babies without medical assistance of any kind
due to lack of money to pay. Without free breakfasts and lunches at school, many
children would be going all day with an empty stomach when Daddy's or Mommy's
money runs out before the next payday.

Do you know any of these people? Have you visited them just because you value
their company and are interested in their opinions? Have you asked them to your
home for an evening? If you answer in the negative, something is lacking, not
only in your knowledge base but in your religious education.

If you did know
them, you would know how offended they would be if you offered to give them
money, but how willing they would be to find the time to do a job for you if you
were to need some temporary chores. However, most of them would happily do the same
chore for you without pay should you ask them.

You see, these people are not the scum of society as so many politicians
would term them. Your familial antecedents would have called them "the salt of
the earth." They are the same kind of people who would sell themselves into
bondage for the opportunity to take their families and their poor possessions
aboard a frail ship to reach a far-off land where they could work hard to build
a better life for their children and for generations to come. They would serve
out their bondage, gather their belongings again, and set out, bag and baggage,
for lands unknown in order to fell trees for a shelter so they could till the
soil and create a home.

But now we live in a settled land where everything belongs to somebody else;
there is no virgin land here for the taking. There are no more frontiers to
settle and there is no choice but for those of us to learn to live with one another.
We are all in the same boat. The problem is that too many want to stand in the
bow and captain the journey while those who man the oars are taken for granted.
As the boat starts to sink from having the weight unevenly distributed by too
many captains, those captains think the answer is to scuttle the oarsmen! Thus,
we are faced with silly ideas like "trickle down."

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There was a time when candidates would campaign door-to-door, visiting with
potential voters in their homes and listening to their concerns. Now campaigns
are limited to televised speeches and rallies among the faithful where the
candidates never talk to anybody who is not already disposed to support them.
The questions usually come from those who already know the canned answers which
they will receive, and neither candidate nor voter actually learn anything.

It is easy for a candidate like Ron Paul to espouse leaving sick and
uninsured to just die and to receive great applause from his supporters, which
leads him to believe that his answer was correct. Do you suppose Congressman
Paul has any close friends or relatives who are truly poor? So why would he
care if a constituent or a hired minion should die for lack of medical
care?

To some of a gentler persuasion, it would seem necessary for a successful
candidate to know those whom he is bound to represent in the government of the
United States. Try asking the question at the next political rally you attend,
"How many poor people do you really know?"

This writer is eighty years old and has spent a half century working with handicapped and deprived people and advocating on their behalf while caring for her own workung-class family. She spends her "Sunset Years" in writing and struggling with The (more...)